It's a stupid status symbol. So many americans are so fucking obsessed with their image it's not even funny.
They could have put a more efficient engine in the H2 without a major drop in performance (if any at all), but no... People want to show off they can afford the extra fuel. Of course, having people buy these increases the demand for fuel and drives the price up (it's already high enough IMHO.) This makes a few rich white fellows rich and happy, but also helps make heating oil too expensive for the poor.
If you must know I drive an '89 Volvo 240 that gets about 20 mpg in the city. I spend $20 a week on gas, so about $1,040 per year (and that's if the price doesn't go up as it already has.) I'm by no means a rich fella (just out of college and paying back loans.) so I can't afford a new car for a while (I want to pay off my student loans before commiting to any new loans)
If I could, I would buy a civic hybrid (about 40 mpg) I'd pay half of that $1,400... $520 a year... plus a one time $2,000 tax deduction. If the civic lasts for 10 years. that means I'd have saved $7,000.
Or, I could buy a Honda Insight. 61 mpg in the city means I'd be paying 1/3rd of that $1,040, or about $650 in savings a year (plus the one tme $2000 tax ditty) 10 years would mean $8,500 in savings.
Now, some freak on CNN is estimating that if America goes to war gas could go up to $5.00 a gallon. I'm guessing that's a bit extreme, so $3.50/gallon is a fair guess. $20 a week at $1.40/gallon means I'm buying 14 gallons o' gas. 14 * 3.50 = 49, so, 49 * 52 weeks in a year = $2,548 a year on gas with my Volvo. or $849 a year with the insight. $1,698 of savings isn't bad at all. Over a 10 year period I'd save $16,980 on gas plus the $2,000. nearly the price of the car ($20,000 with manual trans, AC and stereo.) That'd be like buying the car for $1,020. damn... my Volvo is worth more than that.
Heh... just calculated savings at $5.00/gallon... $26,270 over 10 years.
But keep in mind I'm not much of a super self image kinda guy... I don't have fancy rims on my car, I don't dye my hair or dress in crazy clothes, I don't wear logos (what a great idea! pay some rich asshole extra money so you can be his bitch... I mean billboard.) I don't like being ripped off by rich guys who don't need more of my money. My guess is that it's fashionable to buy fuel inefficient veicles because of the amount of cash oil companies are sending car companies who never seem to make a nice looking car that's fuel efficient. Why not? They could use their more efficient engines in SUVs. People don't need a 340 horse power engine in a 3/4 ton Suburban. My Volvo weighs about 1.5 tons and has a 114 horse power engine. It can tow 3,300 lbs and has a gross vehicle weight of 4800 pounds. Typical suburbanites will never need to tow that much.
Many computer animators buy cards that are even more expensive than those cards. These cards aren't nearly as popular as game cards, though. And honestly they aren't all that great for games. Game cards tend to use a lot of corner cutting, delivering a less accurate image and more artifacts. Professional cards also tend to support some things that would be either useless or simply overkill for games (3d textures, 256 megs of texture memory, etc.)
Examples would be the NVidia's Quadro FX, ATI's FireGL X1, and 3DLabs' Wildcat4 7110.
There cost-cutting computer animators (like me) usually use game cards. I have a GeForce Ti4200 with the soft quadro hack (forces the card to act like a quadro.) I need a fast card so I can view my animations in at 24 FPS and actually be able to create a detailed sub-d model without pulling my hair out waiting for the computer to update, not so that I get some ungodly number of FPS in Quake 3 (my monitor only goes at 60 Hz at 1280x1024 anyway.)
Anything that can be used for evil will be used for evil. This will give absolute power to a few big companies. As Lord Acton observed, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Palladium is a bad fucking idea.
I'm an american. I'm a male. I'm 20 years old. There is a bill being considered to enact something very much like the draft (it's actually more scary than the old draft.) If we go to war the military is going to try to send me to war. War has ruined the lives of thousands of veterans (including two I have met personally.) I do not want my life destoryed, much less ended, so that some rich asshole can make more money (After all that's what this war is about.) Gee why does war with Iraq concern me more than my ability to download music and use software as I please?
If you must know I'm protesting against more than just war (it is possible to stand for more than one thing.) I have written my representatives about the war, the patriot act, the extension of the patriot act, INS profiling, big business, corruption in the government, etc, etc. As well as signed multiple petitions protesting Palladium.
I suggest you do the same.
www.congress.org
(Quick and dirty way to write your representatives)
www.votetoimpeach.com (Bush probably won't be impeached, but this'll be a good way to show congress Bush is not liked by MANY people.)
Okay, well prolly not, but it is not good that everyone is screaming "We need better security!" right before MS is about to release Palladium... err I'm sorry... Next Generation Secured Computing or whatever they are calling it now so everyone will grab it up as quickly as possible. Kinda like the conspiracy theory that Bush ignored the September 11th warnings so that everyone would approve of his "war" after they saw the trade centers fall.
I think the fish experiment could offer quite a lot of insight into how fish judge direction. Also I'm wondering if the fish will learn to use their air bladders when they get back to earth.
It's perfectly legal and fair for them to distribute their files no matter how falesly named. This isn't anything new, really. I've downloaded a number of files that ended up being something I wasn't expecting. "Oh... the Pixar short Mike's New Car is just gay porn... I thought Pixar appealed to kid's as well as adults. Wow... those are some very realistic characters."
Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the bands and artists who's managers would okay this.
Even if the artists aren't going the budget route and want to use the big setups that aren't really needed anymore (Bjork does a lot of her work with her laptop) you can rent out studios. In fact, this is exactly what most if not all of the agencies do. The agencies just set up the appointments. It's a few thousand a day to rent these studios (depending on the amount of crew you need and the equiptment you need.)
The backstreet boys (or that other big boy band) actually recorded and mixed a number of their tracks at my old school.
This means everyone (including you, me, and yes ILM) can benefit from this.
The thing I'd be suspisious (sp?) of is them releasing this format so everyone will start using it, then releasing their tools (for gobs of cash) that'll be better than most other software using the format.
I was a DOOM fanatic when I was 12 and I went on a murderous rampage when I was 13... wait... no I didn't. That's right! I remember now... I would take out the stress of the day's being picked on by shooting virtual creatures and became less violent towards my peers.
I don't know if Microsoft will be hurting their OS. Microsoft knows what it's doing when it comes to competition. After all the things they've done to small companies I wouldn't trust them to do anything.
My guess is that this is an effort to get the public to accept their DRM and use their WMA and WMV codecs. I could be paranoid, but I doubt it.
No matter how easy this was to install, I would not put it on my system. These formats aren't even all that great compared to other ones with fewer strings attached. I wouldn't even install WMP9 on my windows.
I think this move is nothing more than an attack on Quicktime and DivX.
It's rather interesting that some large companies *cough* Disney *cough* have made their millions with heavy use of public works. Can we say, "Pinochio, Aladin, Cinderella, Snow White," and so on and so fourth.
But, mom! I don't wanna learn!
on
Professors vs. WiFi
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Many people learn for the wrong reasons. I think learning should be enjoyable regardless of the material.
I have a horrible memory and history was my worst subject in highschool and college. Does this mean I slept through all of my history classes? Believe it or not, no. I enjoyed many of my history teacher's lessons. I enjoyed listening and (more importantly) participating in the lecture. I still did poorly on many of the exams, but I was attentive in class and I really did learn a lot (in many cases, more than my higher-ranked peers.)
I think there is a "wrong" view of education by students. Many go to college so they can put "whatever degree in blahdittyblah" on their resumes. This means they will work only as hard as they need to in order to get that on their resumes. While an impressive resume is important. An education should be why people go to college, not an impressive resume.
I think this problem stems from how people are raised. In elementary/middle/highschool, people are rewarded for getting good marks on tests regardless on how they got that mark. If it was cramming the night before, or truly getting an understanding of the subject, they get the same mark, same reward. Most people (at least americans) tend to opt for the one that'll give them the most TV watching time (cramming the night before.) I hate to blame the parents (again) and TV (again) but I think parents shouldn't expose their young (0-6 year old) kids to much mainstream TV. Sure, let them watch PBS or even The Discovery Channel, but the networks that show nothing but colorful pictures with lots of noise should be used with extreme caution. Read to kids, encourage them to ask questions. Even more importantly, show them where to find answers and teach them how to think things through before asking questions.
Showing kids how to learn and use logic at an extremely young age (while their minds are still developing) will encourage them to enjoy learning and will get them to go to school to learn and not just to get a paper with a mark on it. Besides, how much respect does a frat boy that managed to memorize some tests answers and forget them right after the exam get when they go into the real world? Oh right... they get elected for presidency.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a stupid status symbol. So many americans are so fucking obsessed with their image it's not even funny.
They could have put a more efficient engine in the H2 without a major drop in performance (if any at all), but no... People want to show off they can afford the extra fuel. Of course, having people buy these increases the demand for fuel and drives the price up (it's already high enough IMHO.) This makes a few rich white fellows rich and happy, but also helps make heating oil too expensive for the poor.
If you must know I drive an '89 Volvo 240 that gets about 20 mpg in the city. I spend $20 a week on gas, so about $1,040 per year (and that's if the price doesn't go up as it already has.) I'm by no means a rich fella (just out of college and paying back loans.) so I can't afford a new car for a while (I want to pay off my student loans before commiting to any new loans)
If I could, I would buy a civic hybrid (about 40 mpg) I'd pay half of that $1,400... $520 a year... plus a one time $2,000 tax deduction. If the civic lasts for 10 years. that means I'd have saved $7,000.
Or, I could buy a Honda Insight. 61 mpg in the city means I'd be paying 1/3rd of that $1,040, or about $650 in savings a year (plus the one tme $2000 tax ditty) 10 years would mean $8,500 in savings.
Now, some freak on CNN is estimating that if America goes to war gas could go up to $5.00 a gallon. I'm guessing that's a bit extreme, so $3.50/gallon is a fair guess. $20 a week at $1.40/gallon means I'm buying 14 gallons o' gas. 14 * 3.50 = 49, so, 49 * 52 weeks in a year = $2,548 a year on gas with my Volvo. or $849 a year with the insight. $1,698 of savings isn't bad at all. Over a 10 year period I'd save $16,980 on gas plus the $2,000. nearly the price of the car ($20,000 with manual trans, AC and stereo.) That'd be like buying the car for $1,020. damn... my Volvo is worth more than that.
Heh... just calculated savings at $5.00/gallon... $26,270 over 10 years.
But keep in mind I'm not much of a super self image kinda guy... I don't have fancy rims on my car, I don't dye my hair or dress in crazy clothes, I don't wear logos (what a great idea! pay some rich asshole extra money so you can be his bitch... I mean billboard.) I don't like being ripped off by rich guys who don't need more of my money. My guess is that it's fashionable to buy fuel inefficient veicles because of the amount of cash oil companies are sending car companies who never seem to make a nice looking car that's fuel efficient. Why not? They could use their more efficient engines in SUVs. People don't need a 340 horse power engine in a 3/4 ton Suburban. My Volvo weighs about 1.5 tons and has a 114 horse power engine. It can tow 3,300 lbs and has a gross vehicle weight of 4800 pounds. Typical suburbanites will never need to tow that much.
Many computer animators buy cards that are even more expensive than those cards. These cards aren't nearly as popular as game cards, though. And honestly they aren't all that great for games. Game cards tend to use a lot of corner cutting, delivering a less accurate image and more artifacts. Professional cards also tend to support some things that would be either useless or simply overkill for games (3d textures, 256 megs of texture memory, etc.) Examples would be the NVidia's Quadro FX, ATI's FireGL X1, and 3DLabs' Wildcat4 7110. There cost-cutting computer animators (like me) usually use game cards. I have a GeForce Ti4200 with the soft quadro hack (forces the card to act like a quadro.) I need a fast card so I can view my animations in at 24 FPS and actually be able to create a detailed sub-d model without pulling my hair out waiting for the computer to update, not so that I get some ungodly number of FPS in Quake 3 (my monitor only goes at 60 Hz at 1280x1024 anyway.)
Anything that can be used for evil will be used for evil. This will give absolute power to a few big companies. As Lord Acton observed, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Palladium is a bad fucking idea.
I'm an american. I'm a male. I'm 20 years old. There is a bill being considered to enact something very much like the draft (it's actually more scary than the old draft.) If we go to war the military is going to try to send me to war. War has ruined the lives of thousands of veterans (including two I have met personally.) I do not want my life destoryed, much less ended, so that some rich asshole can make more money (After all that's what this war is about.) Gee why does war with Iraq concern me more than my ability to download music and use software as I please?
If you must know I'm protesting against more than just war (it is possible to stand for more than one thing.) I have written my representatives about the war, the patriot act, the extension of the patriot act, INS profiling, big business, corruption in the government, etc, etc. As well as signed multiple petitions protesting Palladium.
I suggest you do the same.
www.congress.org
(Quick and dirty way to write your representatives)
www.votetoimpeach.com
(Bush probably won't be impeached, but this'll be a good way to show congress Bush is not liked by MANY people.)
Cool... my phone has locked up a few times... maybe this'll fix that.
Okay, well prolly not, but it is not good that everyone is screaming "We need better security!" right before MS is about to release Palladium... err I'm sorry... Next Generation Secured Computing or whatever they are calling it now so everyone will grab it up as quickly as possible. Kinda like the conspiracy theory that Bush ignored the September 11th warnings so that everyone would approve of his "war" after they saw the trade centers fall.
I think the fish experiment could offer quite a lot of insight into how fish judge direction. Also I'm wondering if the fish will learn to use their air bladders when they get back to earth.
I think the dramatic drop in air preasure could cause some of the newt's organs to pop.
Poor newt.
It's perfectly legal and fair for them to distribute their files no matter how falesly named. This isn't anything new, really. I've downloaded a number of files that ended up being something I wasn't expecting. "Oh... the Pixar short Mike's New Car is just gay porn... I thought Pixar appealed to kid's as well as adults. Wow... those are some very realistic characters."
Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the bands and artists who's managers would okay this.
Sounds like you need a hug... c'mere you big ol' teddy bear!
Even if the artists aren't going the budget route and want to use the big setups that aren't really needed anymore (Bjork does a lot of her work with her laptop) you can rent out studios. In fact, this is exactly what most if not all of the agencies do. The agencies just set up the appointments. It's a few thousand a day to rent these studios (depending on the amount of crew you need and the equiptment you need.) The backstreet boys (or that other big boy band) actually recorded and mixed a number of their tracks at my old school.
I think your joking... but it's so hard to tell.
I think you should end each punch line with a *bum bum crash* or a "Wakka wakka wakka!"
hmm... how dos one spell "Wakka?"
Bravo!
Who cares?
This means everyone (including you, me, and yes ILM) can benefit from this.
The thing I'd be suspisious (sp?) of is them releasing this format so everyone will start using it, then releasing their tools (for gobs of cash) that'll be better than most other software using the format.
I was a DOOM fanatic when I was 12 and I went on a murderous rampage when I was 13... wait... no I didn't. That's right! I remember now... I would take out the stress of the day's being picked on by shooting virtual creatures and became less violent towards my peers.
Why would one need TCPA on a PDA?
I mean this as an honest question.
So how long unil we can buy 4 days worth of music for $50, then play it on a player the size of a wallet that holds 8 cards?
Anyway, I'm wondering how well these cards can handle forces.
It's a "skateboard" with "clip on" bodies. It can have any number of looks. I'm guessing someone wanted the people who see it to remember it.
If /. were an airport and opinions were airplanes, there'd be so many planes it'd probably create a black hole.
Why build a fusion reactor when you can just buy one?!
b =139967&r=1
http://www.labx.com/v2/adsearch/Detail3.CFM?adnum
I don't know if Microsoft will be hurting their OS. Microsoft knows what it's doing when it comes to competition. After all the things they've done to small companies I wouldn't trust them to do anything.
My guess is that this is an effort to get the public to accept their DRM and use their WMA and WMV codecs.
I could be paranoid, but I doubt it.
Drat... meant to hit the preview button.
The MS codecs are what I was talking about.
No matter how easy this was to install, I would not put it on my system. These formats aren't even all that great compared to other ones with fewer strings attached. I wouldn't even install WMP9 on my windows.
I think this move is nothing more than an attack on Quicktime and DivX.
It's rather interesting that some large companies *cough* Disney *cough* have made their millions with heavy use of public works. Can we say, "Pinochio, Aladin, Cinderella, Snow White," and so on and so fourth.
Many people learn for the wrong reasons. I think learning should be enjoyable regardless of the material.
I have a horrible memory and history was my worst subject in highschool and college. Does this mean I slept through all of my history classes? Believe it or not, no. I enjoyed many of my history teacher's lessons. I enjoyed listening and (more importantly) participating in the lecture. I still did poorly on many of the exams, but I was attentive in class and I really did learn a lot (in many cases, more than my higher-ranked peers.)
I think there is a "wrong" view of education by students. Many go to college so they can put "whatever degree in blahdittyblah" on their resumes. This means they will work only as hard as they need to in order to get that on their resumes. While an impressive resume is important. An education should be why people go to college, not an impressive resume.
I think this problem stems from how people are raised. In elementary/middle/highschool, people are rewarded for getting good marks on tests regardless on how they got that mark. If it was cramming the night before, or truly getting an understanding of the subject, they get the same mark, same reward. Most people (at least americans) tend to opt for the one that'll give them the most TV watching time (cramming the night before.) I hate to blame the parents (again) and TV (again) but I think parents shouldn't expose their young (0-6 year old) kids to much mainstream TV. Sure, let them watch PBS or even The Discovery Channel, but the networks that show nothing but colorful pictures with lots of noise should be used with extreme caution. Read to kids, encourage them to ask questions. Even more importantly, show them where to find answers and teach them how to think things through before asking questions.
Showing kids how to learn and use logic at an extremely young age (while their minds are still developing) will encourage them to enjoy learning and will get them to go to school to learn and not just to get a paper with a mark on it. Besides, how much respect does a frat boy that managed to memorize some tests answers and forget them right after the exam get when they go into the real world? Oh right... they get elected for presidency.